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Tigers sign Cabrera to 8-year, $248M extension

Photo by Courtesy of Detroit Tigers
Miguel Cabrera has signed a new contract with the Tigers.

The Detroit Tigers have inked all-galaxy slugger Miguel Cabrera to an eight-year, $248 million contract extension that will keep him in Detroit through age 40 – and making him the highest-paid player in history.

The $31 million annual average salary will be – for now – the highest in baseball, topping L.A. Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw’s $30 million average.

The two-time defending American League MVP Cabrera, who turns 31 on April 18, has two years remaining on the eight-year, $152.3 million deal he signed after he arrived in a December 2007 trade with the Florida Marlins. He’ll be paid $22 million this season and another $22 million in 2015 under the current contract.

Vesting options for 2024 and 2025 are worth $30 million each and could drive the total value to $352 million.

The contract extension was first reported Thursday evening by Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com on Twitter. News that talks had begun between the infielder and the team was broken March 23 by Fox Sports' Jon Morosi, who reported Thursday the details of the new contract.

If Cabrera remains with the Tigers through the end of the extension, he’ll have been paid $400.3 million by the team over 16 seasons. If he stays for the two vesting seasons, the total would rise to $460.3 million.

Barring a trade one day, the new deal basically locks up the Venezuelan-born Cabrera, an eight-time All Star and one of the game’s most fearsome hitters, for the remainder of his career.

In 148 games this season, Cabrera hit an AL-best .348/.442/.636 with 44 home runs, 26 doubles, one triple, 137 RBI, 90 walks, 94 strikeouts and three stolen bases.

In the final month of the season, he was slowed by a groin injury and batted .278 with one home run and seven RBI in September. Cabrera underwent sports hernia repair surgery on Oct. 28.

Cabrera was the first American League player to win back-to-back MVP honors since Chicago White Sox first baseman Frank Thomas did it in 1993-94. The last Tiger to repeat as MVP was pitcher Hal Newhouser in 1944-45.

The Sporting News on Oct. 24 named Cabrera its MLB Player of the Year Award for the second consecutive year.

The league MVP awards are voted upon by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He won the award with 23 of 30 first-place votes and seven second-place votes, the team said in a statement.

Cabrera in 2012 became the first winner of baseball's vaunted Triple Crown (leading his league in home runs, RBI and batting average) since 1967.

In 11 seasons, he’s hit 365 home runs, 412 doubles and 14 triples with 1,260 runs driven in and 799 walks (180 intentional). His career slash line is .321/.399/.568. He’s struck out 1,201 times in 7,126 plate appearances over 1,660 games.

Cabrera played for the Marlins from 2003-07. As a 20-year-old rookie in 2003, he was paid $165,574, according to baseball-reference.com.

Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski and Assistant General Manager Al Avila ran the Marlins in the early 2000s and acquired Cabrera when he was a teenager. Later, when they came to Detroit, they worked the deal to bring him to the Tigers. The contract they signed him to in 2008 was the largest in team history, as is his new deal. It tops the nine-year, $214 million contract given to Prince Fielder in January 2012.

Cabrera was traded to Detroit on Dec. 5, 2007, along with pitcher Dontrelle Willis in exchange for then-prospects Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and four other players.

Willis suffered from control issues and never panned out for the Tigers, but Cabrera has assembled a career that many consider to already by Hall of Fame worthy, and he’s discussed as being among the game’s best-ever hitters.

Cabrera’s agency is Chicago-based Relativity Baseball (formerly SFX). The team’s contracts are typically negotiated by Dombrowski and John Westhoff, the Tigers’ vice president and legal counsel.

Baseball salaries are guaranteed.

Other baseball teams are privately complaining to national baseball writers about the contract.

“Miguel Cabrera is highly respected/appreciated, but officials with other teams are appalled by Detroit decision to give him that many years,” ESPN baseball writer Buster Olney tweeted. “Haven't heard as much disgust over a contract from rival execs since the Jayson Werth contract. Industry is in shock over the Cabrera deal.”

Max Scherzer situation

Friday's announcement came less than a week after the Tigers drew criticism for another contract situation.